Relaxed rules on watering proposed

By Colin McDonald :
August 27, 2012
: Updated: August 28, 2012 1:30am

More Information

The San Antonio Water System is considering loosening watering restrictions that should make drought-weary residents happy, allowing them, for example, to wash their cars at home on Saturdays.

SAWS is proposing new rules that would expand year-round watering hours and change the triggers for the drought stage restrictions. The rules would also allow more water fountains to operate.

The utility's board Monday saw the first detailed presentation on the proposed changes, which will be the subject of a series of public meetings scheduled to start Sept. 6. Details of those meetings were not available Monday.

If adopted by the board in October and then by the City Council, the rule changes could be in place by the end of the year.

In the past 12 years, the drought restrictions have been revised four times. The latest proposed revisions were made possible by most residents showing that they can follow once-a-week watering rules when they are in place.

“By far the most effective things our customers do is water once a week during the peak of summer,” said Karen Guz, director of conservation at SAWS. “We can now change some of the details around (the restrictions) to make it easier for people to cope with that.”

The biggest change is that the rules would no longer have a Stage 1 restriction that is triggered when the J-17 monitoring well of the Edwards Aquifer drops below 660 feet above sea level.

Instead, SAWS would start an “Aquifer Watch” stage when the 10-day rolling average of the J-17 well reached that level.

In this stage, residents would still be able to water on any day, but SAWS would be increasing its public education and enforcement of year-round watering restrictions.

Once the 10-day rolling average of the J-17 goes below 650 feet, SAWS would automatically move to once-a-week watering restrictions.

The idea behind this change is that San Antonio is usually in Stage 1 for only a few weeks in the spring and the conservation measures from watering once a week are really needed only when the aquifer drops below 650. In the fall, when the aquifer usually rebounds, the once-a-week watering restrictions are usually not necessary.

Because of this, SAWS is proposing that instead of waiting 30 days after the aquifer rises above a trigger to lift a restriction, the utility can review the situation and make the ruling after 15 days.

The changes relaxing the limits also are possible because SAWS is able to store and recover much more water than it originally thought possible from an underground reservoir in South Bexar County and because it has brought on water supplies that are not based on the Edwards Aquifer. SAWS also is going to be working with local pool builders and irrigators to establish a system to encourage conservation.

Because residents follow the once-a-week restrictions so well, Guz said requiring all fountains, even those indoors, to be shut off was not necessary and did not provide much water savings.

As it moves away from being dependent on the Edwards Aquifer, SAWS is also moving to join a fight with the agency that governs all pumping from the city's main source of water.

LULAC argued that the EAA's districts represent minority voters in San Antonio unfairly in favor of rural voters living outside Bexar County.

The EAA argues that its districts were created by the Legislature, so LULAC should sue the state.

SAWS CEO Robert Puente said the utility supports LULAC because Bexar County has 84 percent of the population served by the EAA but only 47 percent of the representation on the 15-member EAA board.

Puente was one of the key legislators in the creation of the EAA.

The issue is not expected to be answered quickly. The U.S. Justice Department has asked for more information about the districts, and current board members face no opposition in their election in November.